Half Remembered Dream
by starkbusters
Summary: Lilah Baratheon's life is in the hands of her brother, the King of the Seven Kingdoms. She must marry the man whom she despises more than anything, and despite her small rebellion against this matrimony, she ends up seeking help from the Kingslayer. JaimexOC
1. Chapter 1

_The air was pregnant with the smell of salt. Clumps of seaweed had washed up on the beach. The waves were rippling gently._

 _She was running a mere race against the sea breeze._

 _Her feet was aggressively trampling the sand, leaving the prints of a girl of nine-and-ten. She could almost muster up a cry each time her soles pierced through the shells brought up from the shore. She would not give up, though, but in truth her liveliness for this game was approaching its end, but nonetheless, her pace quickened and she was getting nearer to the cliffs._

 _Lilah could almost pace the sounds of the waves beating the shore with the sound of her heart throbbing. She felt that at most times, when she had been alone with him._

 _Climbing upwards, her feet bloodied, a sudden dread of her Septa's remarks about looking proper to the forthcoming dinner crept into her bewildered thoughts. Septa Wayne was a ghastly wench. If anything, Lilah would have never come to learn the meaning of that mean spirited word if it had not been of her continuous existence._

 _Climbing upwards, her fingernails were scraping the bare foundations of the rugged rocks, and she prayed to the Seven that her feet would not turn traitor and make her slip into the darkness. The Seven had never given their undivided attention to her foregoing prayers before, so she doubted they would give heed during this hour either. In an instant, her heart was hammering like hail on a hard surface. The rocks scraped against her bare skin painfully, red seeping into her cloth. Her weak arms and dehydrated body could only hold her up for so long. Keeping a steady pace was far from her mind. Instead, surviving at any cost, replaced it._

 _She could not concentrate on the details of what she had witnessed, her memories likened a fog in winter, her mind fought hard to drum up a thousand different details to plaster across it. But there was nothing that could truly describe nothing. Each thought she had seemed loud and exposed, just like every movement she made in the silence that wrapped like the fog around her. Maybe the fog was somehow in her, just as she was in it._

 _She reached the top of the hill._

 _Lilah blinked for a second, and wondered if she had been dreaming all this time._

 _«I spent a great amount of time here as a child, you know.» He said with a slight smile._

 _«Suppose you were to tell me this a bit earlier, so I could discover some serenity somewhere else.» She spoke more quickly than he did._

 _«I reckon if you are thinking of isolating yourself from your surroundings, you ought to have a seamstress make you a shield to wear.»_

 _«Stop.» She said with a low voice. Tears were welding up. She didn't think she could stop it this time._

 _"You ought to take a shower when you go home, and your handmaiden should get double the pay in Gold Dragons."_

 _"Robert has turned you into a blathering knight, has he not?" She was too annoyed at him to care for his comments. This was her finale departure from life, consequently witnessed by her finale paramour._

 _His head bent slightly to the side, and he almost smiled at that, before he continued, «I've seen my fair share of high-born ladies being sold like cattle in court.»_

 _She looked directly at him. «Jaime.»_

 _Coming to know the Lannisters had its advantages, and she had come to learn a vast deal of wearing a false front in the eye of the public, but it was an impossible task to do when confronted by the young Lion instead._

 _The Lannisters were perhaps most notorious for their crooked and bent schemes to sustain their power and position in Westeros, going as far as masking deaths of those who dared to spout scurvy rumours of their Household name. Jaime Lannister had been born into this house._

 _She strived hard to not deem him harshly for the actions of his father, so she liked to think that he was simply a commoner at times. It would ease her thoughts in moments like these, but it was nothing but a feeble segment of her vivid imagination to cover up the relentless truth._

 _«I will not wed him. I'd rather die.»_

 _«Now, where's the joy in that?» He smirked, and looked at her directly this time._

 _«I rather much prefer your sister's presence if you are here to mock me.» She spit._

 _Jaime Lannister was much like his sister after all; a fear of showing his loved ones his true feelings or thoughts, and one might think this as a sickly disease in their household, but they wear it so proudly it would be sheer amazement if it was the former._

 _His locks were stuck to his damp forehead, and his eyes were the kind of green that pushed its way through the piles of gritty snow to remind you that spring was coming. Septa Wayne recited plenty of times to her ears about the improper and uncivilized ways of gawking at others, though she was far too occupied to practice this._

 _«You think too much and feel too much, and you run ridiculously fast.» he said flatly, snapping her out of her thoughts. She blinked at his remark._

 _«Are you my newly appointed Septa, Ser Jaime?» She said with a condescending sneer._

 _«We're jesting now, are we? You're not a Lannister, Lilah, you ought to know that by now.» he divulged, his tone seemingly sharper than before. Was he looking for the old Lilah? Seemingly, his gaze was fixated on the gash across her neck, like he had never laid his eyes upon it until this very moment._

 _«What do you reckon by that?» she managed to utter out, bristled by his response._

 _Jaime sighed, before opening his mouth to say, «Gods, Lilah. You know what I meant. You can't conceal your feelings with snide remarks. It is not of your nature, I'm afraid.» He paused for what seemed like an eternity._

 _He looked down. «I came here to apologize.» He said with a strained voice._

 _«What for?» She whispered this time around, staring down at his hands. She dared not jump to conclusions in these moments, as one word could ruin it all. He wanted him to say it._

 _«For whatever part I had in this… fostering this sore moment of your life.» Her chest tightened, a knot emerging in her stomach and sweat was forming on her forehead._

 _She didn't want to hear that, but she gave him a stifled smile instead._

 _«You told me you had a dream... where we grew old together.» She pressed, her eyes filled to the brim with tears. She had hoped he wouldn't see her in this light. A forlorn, little girl who lacked will to restrain herself and her blubbering thoughts._

 _He stood there for a while, refusing to meet her eyes. «I suppose our last reencounter did not last for long and I did not think of it in that matter anymore.» He said, abruptly amending the matter of the affairs._

 _She was naught but a fool for thinking he would be generous enough to give away a round answer._

 _He had voiced it not to many moons ago. Lilah never forgot the blissfulness of it all, and she had held on to that for quite some time, but the lack of realism can turn the mind into a weary, feeble thing. She stood witness to that and she had locked something away, something deep inside her. The truth that she had once known, but... she chose to forget._

 _He watched from high above as the waves crashed violently against the base of the crumbling cliffs. «Lilah...» He paused. «I do not have time to see to every fleeting moment that goes wrong in your life.» He sounded honest this time._

 _The chill sea air bit into her, pushing her back from the precipice, but she stood her ground, watching as waves built up speed and height from far out in the ocean until the peaks rose high above the salty body of water and crashed over into the cliff. As a child, she had feared these mountainous heights and Renly had teased her for as long as she could remember. She wondered what her brother would think of her now._

 _She would take matters in to her own hands, she decided._

 _She held his gaze and said, «I'm asking you to take a leap of faith.»_

 _Jaime looked everywhere and nowhere but in her direction. «You know I can't do that.» He looked at her this time, licking his lips._

 _She threaded lightly further to the ledge._

 _«If I jump, would I survive?»_

 _«Take a second.» He paused. «Think of Renly..." He paused. "Think of Stannis.» His voice was calmer than before._

 _His eyebrows curled against each other, and his eyes widened with anger. «Renly and Stannis is waiting for you!» There was a hint of plea in his voice this time._

 _«I DON'T CARE!» She finally screamed, while she tried to hold back the seething torrent of tears to wash away her anger._

 _«You said we would be together! You said we would grow old together!» She turned around, no longer facing his pleading eyes._

 _«But you don't know for certain, do you?»_

 _«Lilah, Seven Hells! Don't do this!» He shouted into the wind._

 _Her left shoe left her right foot, and so did the rest of her._

 _«Lilah!»_

 _The sounds of the undying waves hitting the rocks was sounding more and more like a lullaby, time felt slower than before and she fell into an eternal sleep._


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note:_

Hey! I decided to write this story because I've always had a vision of how a woman with depression, angst etc etc. would play out in medieval times, and the ASOIAF series was the perfect setting for it! Don't expect a love story from me, babes. Also, English is my third language so please be gentle with the reviews, but criticism is much appreciated as well!

 _Jaime_

«Where did you find her? Why were the bloody guards not by her side? Why were you there?»

Robert Baratheon had never been this furious before, and his afternoon of draining time with the aid of bodies akin to Lyanna Stark's, was now done for as a result of his little sister's high-spirited behaviour.

Cersei stood by her King and was as usual accompanied with a glass of wine, Dorne imported, filled to the rim of the glass. She was narrowing her eyes between Robert and him every now and then, and her high level of suspicion was increasing like the sweltering heat that was waving itself in through the heavy velvet drapes.

«My love, I dread to think if my brother had not been there, your sister's body might have gotten corrupt by the late afternoon.» Cersei Lannister confidently declared her outlook on the matter to her drunkard of a lord husband of six-and-ten years.

«Quiet, woman!» Robert's voice filled the room.

This repelled Jaime more than anything he had come to observe in this wretched, cursed world. Her husband was holding her cheap, even going as far as giving greater respect and care to his whores than Cersei, and all he could do at that moment was to bear witness to it all.

 _And stay silent at it, too._

The Mad King's gales of laughter bouncing off the walls in the Great Hall arose in the back of his mind, and he made sure to look in Cersei's way to appease these frantic memories. It almost worked.

Robert continued, «If I had called for your damned judgment, I would never hear the end of it… LEAVE US!» He roared, and coughed through the last words.

Cersei left without a word, but prior to that she managed to cast a look in Jaime's direction, an urgent plea to pay her a visit.

Plenty of their conversations were cut short by Robert's drunken outburst at most times, and Jaime could scarcely believe this was the life their father had set up for the both of them. He wouldn't wish it on his greatest fiend.

«Kingslayer, call me a fool if I don't have your head on a spike by sundown.» Robert asked, his voice louder than before.

Jaime fell silent at that. He was overly used to this, to even remotely care for his taunting remarks in these hours. The King had made it a habit to get a reaction out of him, perhaps prompting him to lose it someday, like he supposedly had done with the Mad King.

«Your Grace, I tried my best while she was on land and under the sea, there was no other way to do it.» Jaime looked down, refusing to meet his bloodshot eyes.

Robert looked bored, and his mind must have wandered somewhere else, as he was slumping more and more in his seat than his spine could care for. His breath reeked from afar, and he could tell the King was one drink away from passing out. The sooner the latter was to happen, the more time he had to spend in Cersei's chambers.

The King didn't even seem to shift at what he had said. He seemed lost in his thoughts, Gods forbid if he had any, in that hollow headed brain of his. Did he care so little for his youngest sister? What Robert had done to his sister, and to blame two witless guards on the matter? This was the man who sat on the Iron Throne, the highly esteemed and most powerful seat in the region. _Only fools could worship the ground he walks on, even if the ground was made of their severed heads._

Lost in his thoughts of diverse hatred and great confusion, Jaime saw it as a cue to vacant from this whole ordeal.

«Your Grace, if there is anything else you-?» Jaime said in a clear tone before the King interrupted.

«What did you say to her?» the King had finally snapped out of his passing slumber, yet he looked defeated, perhaps the guilt was eating through his stomach at last.

«Your Grace?» Jaime gave him a graveled look. Or he was very good at pretending to look the part.

«What did you say to her that made her jump, Kingslayer?» Jaime's mouth opened. _Did he know or was this bait to get a reaction out of him?_ A spineless, drunk like him would have been far too occupied grasping for breath in a wench's tits to catch the prudent glances they had given each other during the feasts he had thrown in her name.

 _Your Grace, I'm convinced Lady Lilah had her reasons given the series of distressing_ _events that took place moons ago. Surely you must've seen it coming?_

Jaime wanted to say that, but he wanted his head kept above his shoulders, as he and countless others were very fond of it.

«Nothing. I said the same thing before she ran away. I called out her name.»

Robert didn't blink. _Which nerve did I strike?_

«If that's all, Your Grace.» He nodded somewhat in his direction, turned his heel and never looked back.


	3. Chapter 3

_King's Landing_

 _Lilah_

 _3 years ago_

"Do you think there's more to this? More to wearing flashy dresses, going to feasts, being sold like priced jewelry to a man?" Lilah asked her brother, Stannis, on a late afternoon during supper. She was clearly not hungry, and her food had gone sour after playing with it too much.

Her brother didn't care for these trivial matters, as he himself was born a man, and their lives went on a different route than the one his sister was bound to.

«Don't ask me questions I don't have the answers to.» He said with a grim look on his face. «There are other matters to discuss here.»

The years he had spent in Dragonstone had taken a toll on his mind, and Lilah wondered what he was like before the death of her parents.

«And what is that, precisely? Teaching the Onion Knight how to read? Grant Shireen the permission to visit her aunt for once? I _miss_ her, you know.» She dropped the cutlery on the plate, and looked directly at Stannis. The sound of the clashing seemed to strike a nerve, and the veins on his forehead were visible to the naked eye.

 _Gods, he's getting old._ She imagined what her father would look like at this age, but the thought of it made her anxious and she shook her thoughts off before they settled down. He never fully reached Stannis' age, she presumed.

Lilah cleared her mind, and her throat at it too.

He was losing his patience with his little sister, and she could tell. «Careful now, sister, you've already quarreled enough with Robert today.» He went back to his food, paying her no mind further.

One might describe Stannis Baratheon as a cold, stubborn and rarely forgiving man but also brave and in possession of an immense sense of duty. As is expected of Baratheons, Stannis was proven on the battlefield as both a commander and warrior. Lilah, on other hand, had been unfortunate with the traits she adopted from House Baratheon. _If I didn't share our family name, my existence would have little to null significance._

A silence ensured for a while, but upon growing up Lilah had learned, to her dismay, that she could never let things go once she caught the notion of it. Stannis was hiding something, and Lilah had come to learn that men who hid the truth from everyone else decided the fate of Westeros. This could explain why she had spent half of her history lessons by Septa Wayne with her eyes closed. She wondered if it was something that would put their lives in danger. The prospect of it gave her great excitement, as rarely anything happened in the Capital anymore, if one didn't succumb to the gossiping and false rumours that scattered daily like litter in Flea Bottom.

«What are the matters we are to deliberate about? If it's not politics, leave me out of it, would you kindly.» Lilah said with an exaggerated yawn.

He made no reply.

Stannis had very little patience for false politeness that was expected of a lord in court and generally stated his opinions of others or what was on his mind aloud. This could explain the silence that ensured shortly after. _He has no opinion of me..._

 _Good._

Lilah couldn't wait to get out of here as soon as she could, though she had nothing else to waste her time with, so she found herself settled anyway.

«Apologies, my dearest siblings.» Renly appeared out of thin air, something he had as of recent learned to master in King's Landing, as it would come very handy in certain aspects of one's life. One might've suspected that he was spying for Varys himself.

Renly sat down, and revealed a smirk straightway when he took notice of the looks casted across his siblings' faces. «And what have I missed this late afternoon?» He said, grinning from ear to ear.

«My dear brother, have you switched sides with the Lannisters? Our unpleasant faces seem to bemuse you." Lilah said, sighting her mischievous grin.

"I'd rather have one of you pierce me from behind than to join forces with the golden wildcats." Lilah laughed at that. She would laugh more if she were in the presence of Renly more often.

"Baratheons do not jest bawdily during supper." Stannis finally said, and the smiles on their faces extinguished just as lit candles did in the wind.

"Your wet nurses weren't great substitutes for your parental figures, and I regret to see that now." He sounded disappointed, as always. His voice could only range from anger to disappointment, to Lilah's experience, and she had grown accustomed to it.

"You're not father," Lilah said with determination in her voice. "You don't have to be because Renly and I, believe it or not, we're faring quite well without the assistance of Robert's or yours, truly."

She had lost her appetite hours ago and it didn't really sit well with her why she would withstand it any longer. Perhaps she longed for Stannis' approval, Renly's self-righteousness and Robert's bravery served on the table at once. But even her food had turned out stale and cold.

"Faring well? One's duty to marry is long overdue and the other is doing the complete opposite of lifting women's skirts." He seemed stoic, and his voice had turned monotonous.

Renly looked hurt for a minute, before his face changed into a somewhat bewildered expression, yet she knew the great deals of his secret life to not seek retribution. The public first, and now his own family ridiculed him for it.

She stood up from her seat, and the sound of the chair's screeching hit every corn of the room.

"And one's _duty_ is to produce heirs, yet you can't seem to grasp the notion of holding your lady wife's bare hands!" She was furious, and she couldn't hold her temper in anymore. _Maybe I had been too harsh on Robert's temperament after all._

Renly's eyes widened at Lilah's sudden outburst, and he started choking on his water while repeated coughs were the only sounds made in that moment.

He locked eyes with her right after. She gave him pleading eyes, asking him to stay and to not fight this battle by her own but she knew Renly wouldn't waste a drop of his youth on it.

"I will leave the both of you to sort this issue out, as I don't see myself intertwined in it and so forth." He said matter-of-factly with his brows lifted, he stuffed the last cherry tomato in his mouth from the plate and disappeared out of the room.

"Sit down. Sort out your hunger. Maester Cressen had me informed of what hunger does on one's temperament."

"Is that what you were told during the siege of Storm's End? Did Ser Davos _lose_ his fingers because of _hunger_? Is that why Robert weighs more than he does now than he used to when Lyanna Stark was still alive?" She was out of breath by the end of the last sentence.

The room was filled with silence yet again.

She sighed.

"Will you ever answer any of these questions?"

"I don't have the right answers to these ludicrous questions." He finally answered.

"That's a lie, and you know it."


End file.
